PayPal

8.11.2012

Scotts Mills

Scotts Mills Friends Church sits in the foothills of the Cascades. The town was founded by Quakers from the midwest. The building was started in 1893 but the framing was brought down in a wind storm that winter and they had to start over in 1894. It has a steeple and a bell and even at the beginning a bit of stained glass, and was a wee bit more gingerbready than would have been seemly in Kansas at the time. There is no indication that there was ever the traditional separation of men's and women's sides - so all in all, it was mighty progressive. And that is about the only time anyone has ever said that.

The church sits up a hill above the town. They set the cemetery over Butte Creek on a rise that mirrored the church. For most of their history they have been the only visible church in town. The meeting was presided over by a procession of very Quaker Kelloggs and Magees. But like many rural Friends Churches it has always had the flavor of a community church. People who moved there at least tried it out and often attended even if their views were divergent - easier than driving to the next town to get your actual favorite theological flavor. Many of these folks had a lasting influence.

Scotts Mills briefly pulled out of the yearly meeting in the 1920's over association with the Five Year Meeting which would become FUM. They felt that the larger association was becoming less orthodox, less focused on issues of doctrine, and that meant Holiness doctrine as well as traditional Quaker doctrine. Oregon Yearly Meeting as a whole became independent from the Five Years Meeting and that solved Scotts Mills' problem.

The church has waxed and waned over the years, but never faltered.

One of the interesting features that the Holiness Movement and Quakerism
have always had in common is the willingness to listen to female
preaching. Charlotte arrived during a lesser waning. She was more than excited about her first solo pastorate. She was full of ideas from Asbury. Her theology was clearly orthodox and sanctified enough, but she also came carrying a bushel basket full or ideas on growing a modern church in the second half of the 20th century.